The present invention generally relates to tracking and/or monitoring assets that are stored and/or transported in shipping containers and, in particular, to facilitating communications for tracking and/or monitoring assets that are stored and/or transported in shipping containers at a level of tracking and/or monitoring that is at or below that of the shipping container.
The ISO standard maritime and intermodal containers are ubiquitous and the primary means of shipping goods internationally to and from the United States. The container technology is a mature and well established practice with over 16 million containers worldwide. This in-place infrastructure represents billions of dollars in capital for shippers and terminal operators, most of which is designed to handle and transport the standardized ISO container.
In the last decade, and with increased emphasis following the passage of the Maritime Transportation Security Act, the Department of Homeland Security has devoted considerable resources toward securing maritime cargo. Indeed, container tracking and sensor monitoring have taken on added importance with the realization that a container shipped into the US could cause severe damage if a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) were to be smuggled therein. Programs that have been initiated include Operation Safe Commerce, the Container Security Initiative, C-TPAT, and the Smart Container initiative. The development continues with programs such as the Advanced Container Security Device and the Automated Commercial Environment. Unfortunately, all of these programs suffer from a lack of granularity in the level of tracking and monitoring provided. More specifically, none of the contemplated security and information systems are being designed to track or monitor a unit any smaller than today's ISO container. It is believed that a better system would include tracking and/or monitoring not only of such shipping containers as a whole, but the individual assets within such shipping containers as well.
Accordingly, in furtherance of the protection and security of international and national commerce, and in the interests of U.S. national security, one or more preferred embodiments of the present invention is intended to facilitate communications for tracking and/or monitoring of assets that are stored and/or transported within the ISO standard maritime and intermodal container, i.e., to provide visibility at a granularity below that of merely tracking or monitoring the shipping container itself. In this respect, one or more preferred embodiments of the present invention facilitates the tracking and/or the monitoring of not only the shipping container, but the contents within the container as well.